ACLJ Fires Off Demand Letter on Behalf of California Employee Requesting Sundays Off To Observe Sabbath

The ACLJ was recently contacted by an individual who is seeking a religious accommodation from his employer, a California public agency, to observe the Sabbath on Sundays in accordance with his sincerely held religious beliefs. Our client works for 10 days straight and then is off for four days. Every three months, his schedule rotates and his off days change. For instance, our client is currently scheduled to work every other Sunday. When our client’s schedule rotates, he will then be scheduled to work every Sunday. Thus, he is scheduled to work on Sundays despite his sincerely held religious beliefs that Sundays are to be observed as the Sabbath.

Prior to contacting us, our client was forced to use his PTO to take Sundays off with no formal accommodation with the employer. If his PTO runs out, he could face disciplinary action by his employer. We assisted our client in requesting a religious accommodation with the agency’s human resources department pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In response to his request, our client was called into a meeting with HR and his supervisors.

In this meeting, our client was told he could work one of two other Sunday shifts or receive Sundays off with no pay – essentially cutting his hours and pay in order for him to practice his religion. Rather than granting our client a reasonable accommodation, the employer’s proposed “accommodations” still force our client to choose between his religious beliefs and his job while penalizing him for observing the Sabbath by cutting his hours, resulting in lower pay.

We just sent the California agency a demand letter insisting that our client’s employer no longer schedule him to work on Sundays and grant him a reasonable accommodation that allows him to observe the Sabbath without penalty or threat of loss of pay.

Employees are not required to set aside their religious beliefs or practices when they enter the workplace. Title VII preserves and protects an employee’s religious freedom and makes it unlawful for employers “to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s . . . religion . . . .” (Emphasis added.)

The term religion is broadly defined, and a religious belief in observing the Sabbath falls squarely within the statute’s definition. As the Supreme Court has emphasized, an employer has an affirmative obligation to eliminate the conflict between a job requirement and an employee’s sincerely held religious belief or practice unless doing so poses an undue hardship on the employer. According to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Groff, an undue hardship means the request would substantially interfere with the operations of the employer. The Code of Federal Regulations further provides that no undue hardship is imposed by temporary costs, voluntary shift swapping, occasional shift swapping, or administrative costs.

As we explained in our demand letter, the conflict between our client’s religious beliefs and being scheduled to work on Sundays is not eliminated simply by forcing our client to use his PTO because, as soon as it runs out, he will still be forced to choose between work and his religion. Working one of the other two shifts on Sundays does not eliminate the conflict either. Even further, Sundays off with no pay would penalize our client by having his hours cut, resulting in lower pay, though he is willing and able to work any other day of the week.

If his government employer does not comply with the law, we will take further legal action.

We at the ACLJ remain dedicated to preserving and defending employees’ religious liberties. If you have experienced religious discrimination by your employer, please contact us at ACLJ.org/HELP.